Let’s Get Social!

I beg your indulgence while I reminisce for a moment. When I started working online in 1996, I lived on a 100-acre farm property in rural Ontario, Canada, about two hours east of Toronto.

We had one dial-up phone line and one computer. I know I’m dating myself here, but when I think about how I work online today, it still amazes me at how far we’ve come and how cool it is that small business owners can compete for attention on a more level playing field than in pre- and early Internet days.

I remember how excited I was when I bought a Zip Disk drive because I could store 100 MB of information! Now, if you manage your business in the Cloud, your storage capacity is unlimited. [Read more…]

Over lunch during a recent workshop, I was chatting with a woman about her business. She was despondent about her lack of success and why it seemed so difficult to attract clients, despite her experience. It felt like she was on the verge of giving up on her business dream because she was struggling to make a go of it.

Every business has its ups and downs. Before I could offer any words of encouragement or suggestions, I asked what she was doing currently to get the word out about her business. She looked at me and after a few seconds of silence said, “Nothing. I don’t know what to do.” [Read more…]

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

I’ve been thinking a lot about transformation…how my business has evolved over the last year and where I want it to go in in the future.

I’m curious to know how you’re thinking about the next year in your business. Do you anticipate growth and transformation?

Do you know where you want to take your business?

Or, do you feel overwhelmed and confused about what you need to do to get better results?

Transformation can be intentional or it can be accidental. The problem with the latter is that you may end up reacting to events, rather than creating exactly what you want. I’ve experienced both and I prefer to set my direction. Things always turn out better, more in alignment with what I want to experience and the impact I want to make with my work.

Where do you stand?

Do you make it happen or let it happen to you?

Here’s a bit of my story about how I got to this point, today. [Read more…]

3 Simple Keys to More Profits, Less Stress and More Visibility

Building your business and growing it to support the lifestyle you want is the whole point of becoming an entrepreneur.

The first step in doing so is to define what success means for you. Perhaps it means that you work a certain schedule. Have the ability to travel extensively. Or maybe it has to do with the amount of income you generate. Be OK with whatever success means to you and resist the urge to be influenced by what the "gurus" say you should be doing. Instead, focus your efforts on bringing your vision of success to life! This means taking action to works towards your goal.

Remember this quote:

“There is something more important than believing; ACTION! The world is full of dreamers. Those who are successful will move ahead and begin to take concrete steps to ACTUALIZE their vision” (- Unknown).

In order to build your business, you will need to do just a few things very well:

1.Market Consistently: This can be a challenge when the majority of your time is spent working with clients and running your company. However, you cannot market sporadically or only when you need clients and expect to create a successful business. You'll get the best results by focusing your efforts on just a few strategies that fit your target market and your goals…

Building a visible presence on the web takes not only consistent action, it also requires that you are constant…constant with your content production on all platforms.

You know, if somebody lands on a site that has not been updated in a few weeks or months, it's like going into a shop with no stuff on the shelves, dirt on the floor and broken windows.

In order to stay constant, what do you do? You need to start with a plan. If you're haphazard about your activity it shows. So here are a couple of things to think about when developing your plan:

What is your message?

Who do you serve?

What do you want them to know about you and your business?

Once you have those questions answered you create a schedule and plot out how you're going to educate, entertain, and engage your community with your content.

You need to schedule time for your blogging and social media activity. So get a calendar and mark off blogging and social marketing time every week. Set aside dates and times. Schedule two to threes times per week for posting on your blogs. The indisputable fact is, the more you post, the more traffic you'll get. Then also schedule time to read and comment on other blogs in your niche, so you stay up to date with what's going on in your industry.

So, what goes on your blog? What goes on Twitter? What goes on Facebook? This is where your editorial calendar comes in. Debbie Weil, in her presentation for Blogging Success Summit, pointed out lessons we can learn from Whole Foods about how they organize their content:

Twitter for real time alerts

Facebook for less time sensitive news

Blog for longer, evergreen content

From my perspective, the information that goes on your blog is the deeper, more intimate content that enables your reader to really get to know you, what you stand for and how you serve them.

I often hear people always are talking about time — that they don't have enough time to do all this blogging and social media stuff. And yes, if you want to build a powerful, visible presence on the Web, there are many things that you need to do. But if you plan it out, you and your team can get it done without it taking up your entire day.

Start with a half an hour day. Three days a week, write blog posts. Two days a week read articles on other sites and repurpose blog posts into other formats so you can leverage your content on other platforms. Automate what you can and what makes sense to save time.

The bottom line…you've got to have a plan for your content so you stay consistent and constant and can be found by your ideal client.

Recently I did a search for "editorial calendars." Here are a few sites that offer free calendar templates you can download – take your pick: